Friday, May 18, 2007

Today has been something of a human study. People just come up to me and start pouring out their life stories - it's like I'm a bartender or something.

__________A girl came up to the counter to return some stuff, but she didn't have a driver's license, yada yada yada... she mentions that she has four kids. I'm like "FOUR! Girl, how old are you?!??" She tells me she's 19. I think my mouth was probably hanging open like one of those snakes that unhinges its jaw to eat. I manage to spit out "holy crap!" She says she's been married for five years. "What?!? WHAT? . . . . . You got married when you were FOURTEEN?!!??! Is that even legal?!" Apparently it was --- both her parents signed the consent form. What kind of stupid, *SICK* guardians agree to let you enter into a legally-binding, lifetime contract when you are still small enough to shop at Libby Lu?!???! Your bachelorette party should not consist of painting each other's nails neon pink, eating all the chips and cookies your mom could get at the store, reading Tiger Beat (squealing when you get to the Aaron Carter poster) and watching your favorite Hilary Duff movie before piling into your sleeping bags on the floor, and talking & giggling so late that the parents have to SSSSSSSHHH! you. Your 'something new' should not be your permanent molars! Again, I say AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!

__________A man asked me what my necklace was, if it was actually a ring that goes on your finger. He pulls this chain out from inside his shirt, that has what is clearly a wedding ring strung on it. I ask him why he's not wearing it. He goes into how his wife said he worked too much and ended up sleeping with another man. They were going to marriage counseling, and she finally admitted to having an affair (which he, of course, made sure to capture on a voice recorder he had taken with him). They were entrenched in a battle over the kids when she suddenly decided she couldn't handle anymore, so she randomly up and left them and didn't come back until later the next day (she went to visit her friend again). Now she's saying she'd be OK with him having the kids. I'm just standing there, looking at him, looking at my manager, looking back at him, a little surprised at people's openness with a complete stranger. We just sorta shook our heads after he left.

__________Two guys and a girl walk up to me and one of 'em asks "Do ya'll sell kegs?" I'm like "Kegs? Ummmmm, no. All we have are funnels over in housewares." "So you don't have any at all?" "I guess, I dunno, go to a liquor store or a frat house or....."

__________I had a customer come up to me with an old used bottle of lotion; she said that those were sold in two-packs and she wanted to know if anybody had returned a single one of those anytime in the recent past. She thinks somebody stole the other one from her house and returned it. Her request was, to be clear, not at all about remuneration, but about pulling a Columbo and tracking down the suspected klepto in her life (she "just needed to be sure".) I told her we had no way of looking through old transactions for a returned bottle of $3 lotion, but that I'd ask, to be sure. I just wanted to walk over to the other employee at the end of the desk and tell her about this ridiculous exchange. Without laughing. . . . yeah, that didn't happen.

So here is my point:Keep a vigilant eye on your bathroom cabinets. Pay close attention to the bottles on your counter. Is something missing? Did you used to have a bottle of freesia lotion where there is now only dust? Have tubes of Lubriderm steadily been disappearing from your bathroom? Beware the Moisturizer Mole in your own home that is secretly slipping away with your health and beauty products. Today it may be the lotion, tomorrow the Visine.

Well, a funny thing happened to Jan just this morning. Someone had stolen her shaving cream. So this kind of theft of toiletries does occur. Be on the watch for someone returning some Gillette shaving cream to WalMart!